Personal Finance 2022 J-Term

  Micah Weinstock Dr. Ott Personal Finance January 14, 2021 We started the day with a long conversation about questions we had in YMYL. It was a great conversation that dealt with many topics and led to deep thought by many. After a short break we came back and handed out tasks on creating the presentation of our course. We decided to have 10 categories, ranging from all types to topics, from crypto to movies. When we came back from lunch, we worked on our slides, practiced them as to see how we fit within our time constraints, and finalized them. The last thing that we did was watch a movie about the Enron scandal, “Enron, The Smartest Guys In The Room.” It was an interesting watch for us, as we were watching the downfall of a financial behemoth that happened in our own backyard, in a building that many of us have driven past. We ended with a short discussion about our takeaways from the movie and our thoughts and got the chance to say thank you Dr. Ott! We will miss you!

 Shyla Jogi Dr. Ott Personal Finance     I learned so much from this course. Over just the past two weeks, I learned about so many aspects of personal finance, from options trading to real estate to the morals of money. I learned so much more than I thought I would have over this J-Term. But at the end of these two weeks, I honestly feel that I learned so much more than I've learned about money through my whole school career. All the mini projects we did served to cement my knowledge with hands-on activities, making it more active learning, not just passive lectures and readings. The readings we were assigned, Your Money or Your Life , Cryptoassets , and  Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School taught me so much about all these individual topics. Your Money or Your Life  was really informative when it came to talking about what 'work' means, what my spending habits really are, how to track my monthly expenses, and what money really means. Why Didn't They Teach Me Th

  This course was absolutely amazing. I learned so much more about finances than I have in my whole life in any class that I have ever taken. I really enjoyed the book. Why didn't they teach me this in school because I feel like every single tip that is in there is very useful. I also really enjoyed learning about crypto assets but I wish all of us were required to read the crypto assets instead of your money or your life. Or even all three, I feel as though the crypto assets are super important and are the future of money. I think that it would make more sense for everyone to read the whole thing to really get the most out of it. Although we didn't read the whole thing, what I did read was so interesting that it has made me very interested in mining and trading crypto. I also really enjoyed the game of life. It showed me how much living really costs and it also showed me how expensive that life I want to lead will be. I never realized how much my parents pay to keep up with my

  Personal Finance Reflection   Gustavo  When I first started this course I had a few doubts on how good it would be and the tough workload that I heard about. However, after the first week I was having fun and even enjoying a lot of the assignments that we had to do. The ideas and the things I learned from this class are very valuable and I definitely will use them in the future. The movies we also got to watch were not only informative but they were also very entertaining. I always felt like I had something to do and I was never bored. Reading the books was also very fun and informative. The crypto book taught me a new level of crypto currency that I did not know about as well as showing me how I can use it in my life, overall the book showed me everything I feel like I need to know to start crypto. YMYL had taught be how we should not only be informed with our finances, but it also showed me how we should be informed with our "Life Energy". WDTTMTIS taught me so many di

 Course Reflection     Overall, I'm very glad that I took this course. It just happens that in the past year I'd been thinking a lot about how I knew nothing about money and finance and taxes, which stressed me out so much. School can be useful, but honestly, a lot of it is just busy work that I'm never going to use in real life, but personal finance has been different in the sense that I know it will be extremely beneficial to my everyday life. The workload was definitely heavy, but I honestly did not mind since I really wanted to learn this information. I found that researching in-depth certain topics for my slides was extremely helpful because I was given the opportunity to narrow down on specific topics such as retirement funds and insurance which are both things that are necessary for me to know. I was more than willing to do the work as I knew how much this would help me in the long run. I would definitely recommend this course, and I think I would take it again. I le

Sofi Savarese  Personal Finance  Dr. Ott  1/14/22  Course Reflection  Over the course of this J-term, I have learned more about money than I thought was possible. We jumped into complicated topics such as investing, the stock market, cryptocurrencies, and many more. While this was slightly confusing and a little overwhelming, the outcome from this course that I will carry with me for the rest of my life makes it completely worth it. The things that I will take away from this course will easily be some of the most important things that I have learned in school. Things such as how to buy a house, credit cards, and how to pay taxes are fundamental to my adult life. Also, things such as cryptocurrency and bitcoin were very interesting and important to learn about as our world is slowly progressing to a digital world. We also talked about many "big money questions" such as what would you do if you didn't have to work for a living. This helped me understand how to break down th

 Gabe Avritscher Dr. Ott Personal Finance January 14 2022 Course Reflection Although I had an idea of what my finances would look like in my upcoming collegiate years, I found it very helpful to carefully examine all the expenses I will encounter through the Game of Life. It was also interesting to see how my financial landscape changed once I entered the workforce and could build up my net worth. The books were equally helpful, as they provided invaluable insight and tips for making the most out of your income. The books also introduced me to numerous concepts I didn't have much familiarity with, such as mutual funds, Roth IRAs, ETFs, and blockchain technology. The book about crypto assets was the most intriguing, as despite it being a more complex reading, it did an excellent job of detailing the whole crypto revolution. It will be interesting to see how crypto factors into many Americans' retirement plans in the next few decades. Although the movies were humorous, all three

Kilali Latter Personal Finance Dr. Ott 1/14/22 Course Reflection         I have learned so much from Personal Finance. I believe that what I have learned from this course will be some of the most important information in my adult life. I have learned how to budget, save, and invest. I have also learned about what will be important in my adult life like credit cards, homeownership, taxes, real estate, and so much more. I have learned what I need to do in order to retire early and become financially independent. Through the book Your Money or Your Life  I learned how to live a happy life, where I have "enough" instead of too much stuff. I learned that I should do things that I love and work for a living instead of working for a dying. This course taught me more than just money and investing, it taught me about life and helped me see what I want my life to be like, instead of what society says it should be like. I learned some of the steps that I should take in order to be able

     While this J-term isn’t necessarily as fun or exciting as some of the other J-terms, I learned a lot of useful information that I did not know prior to this course. It felt important to me to learn this information before I leave for college and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. I was able to learn a lot of the basics of money management and personal finance. The game of life showed me what my future can look like if I’m responsible with my money and I was able to learn how to be responsible with my money especially through the books we read. Why Didn’t They Teach Me This in School gave a lot of good tips on how I can save money (ex. Principle 19: Have an emergency month every January) and how to be wise about where I put my money. This course has given me the push I needed to finally start a savings account. I am now working to save a portion of my paycheck so that I have an emergency fund as well as spending money for college.      The concept that interested me the mo

 Personal Finance Course Reflection This is (by far) the most valuable J-Term that you could participate in at Post Oak. I have learned more valuable information in these two weeks than I ever have before regarding finance. In just these two weeks, I feel much more confident in my financial future. I have always had aspirations in my life that have greatly involved being financially independent. The game of life activity was the most helpful to me because I was able to budget out my full life and set goals for where I want to be in the future. One of my main goals in life is to own a ranch in a beautiful/mountainous area, this obviously comes with a price. My original plan was to "figure it out" but now I feel much more confident in how I will be able to afford this for my future wife and kids. By learning about appreciating real estate and long-term marketed investments, I should be able to afford what I want and more in the future. Another big lesson learned was the value o

This course has been really great for me, I learned about a lot of tools to help save me money notably the mint app. In addition to this, we learned a lot about stock analysis especially technical analysis which I had never done. I personally really liked it and I learned how to use a lot of advanced tools like trading view and a couple of others. I really enjoyed this aspect and will definitely use it in the coming years. The other big thing that will stick with me is options trading. We watched a really funny and interesting movie called trading places about options and futures which I honestly enjoyed and soon afterward I opened an options trading account on Robinhood. That combined with the technical analysis we learned will really help me get into options trading.  The other major part of our course is the game of life. This is a massive spreadsheet where we predicted our expenses and gross income for each year starting from college. It made my plans for the future much clearer it

 Reflection on the Class Oscar Rawson     I learned a lot over the course of this J-Term. How to make better investments, how to begin saving for retirement, how to budget my monthly earnings and expenses, and how to start working for financial independence.  Your Money or Your Life and Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School? both were incredibly helpful books.  Your Money or Your Life promoted me to think a lot about ways to save for retirement early, and how to budget my monthly income. As I begin to have an income, the wall chart proposed by the book will be immensely helpful for me in saving my money and reducing my expenses. Managing the chart like this proved to reduce the stress and expenses of the people that used it in the book. I think that  Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School? 's quick tip format was really well-done and informative and straight to the point. His tips about retirement accounts and where to put your money were really helpful. Overall, the co

 I really appreciated retaking this course again. In this class this year, I’m glad that I was given more time to look into forex as I have a special love for that. I definitely was helped to recall concepts that I learned in past versions of the course that I may have forgotten over the course of time. I think the main takeaway from this course for me is that a financial situation is workable and it’s never hopeless. If you’re in a tough moment financially, there is so much that you can do to try to work your way out. I learned that I can do something. That I can have an impact. I really loved taking this class each time and I feel very lucky to be here for what could potentially be the last one. Thank you Dr. Ott. 

  Monday - Week 2 of our Personal Finance J-Term Shyla Jogi      This Monday, we started the day off with a seminar about sections in Your Money or Your Life, and Why Didn't They Teach Me This In School. We had a really enlightening discussion about how to manage and invest our own money responsibly, how to track our daily and monthly expenses, and the best ways to save without sacrificing our enjoyment and fulfillment. We spent time in the morning finalizing our Game of Life, which tracks our projected financial prospects through Google Sheets. It was very enlightening and thought-provoking. We learned a lot from doing this exercise, probably more than we would have learned if we had just had a lecture on it. Having this activity be hands-on and interactive was a great way for us to learn more not only about personal finance, but about ourselves, our spending habits, and the overall way we look at money itself.      We had two guest speakers come in and talk about investing and bl

 Today we began the day by discussing fundamental and technical analysis. Each student chose a stock to analyze and present their findings. We learned about Apple, Ford, GM, Chipotle, Exterior Oil Field Solution, and Cleaveland Cliffs stocks. After this, we had our final seminar on Your Money or Your Life. We discussed topics such as investments, investing money into real estate, financial advisors, financial independence, and FSCO scores. After lunch students began their presentations. The first presentation was on taxes. We learned about the three main types of taxes, regressive taxes, proportional taxes, and progressive taxes. We also learned about estate taxes as well as, inheritance, franchise, corporate, income, sale, property, excise, and income taxes. The presenter explained details such as what the form of tax is, where it is used, and when it is used. We then listened to 2 more presentations on Entrepreneurship and wills, trusts, and foundations. After that, we moved on to pr

 Day 6 Personal Finance Blog        Today we started with the usual and we had a seminar on WTDTMTIS and YMYL where we talked about important housing lessons and how we should value our life energy. We had thoughtful discussion not just about finance, but our lives as well.   After the seminar we took a break and came back to presentations. Micah and Gustavo started first with a presentation on the different markets and how they mostly work. After the market presentation, we moved on and listened to Gabe's stock market presentation and how interesting it is. Once the presentation and the fascinating discussions had finished we were dismissed for our 45 minute lunch break.      When we returned we began with a presentation by Andy and Mateo on "Other Ways to Invest in the Market", basically ways like options and such. It was a very interesting presentation with lots of details. Once Mateo and Andy had finished their well presented presentations we shifted our attention to

   Personal Finance Day 7 Blog Oscar Rawson   Today was the 7th day of our Personal Finance J-Term. We began the day with a seminar about the last section of Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School?  and Your Money or Your Life. We primarily discussed investment income, and when it becomes safe to live off of the return on your investments, also known as the "Crossover Point". It's when your investment income exceeds 4% of your expenses. There were some more philosophical discussions, too. What would you do if you didn't have to work for a year? What about the rest of your life? The answer for a number of people was resoundingly traveling. After the seminar, we watched the documentary Cryptopia. We all thought it was incredibly interesting how it revealed the inner workings of cryptocurrency and speculated about how technology such as blockchain and cryptocurrency mining could affect the future.  After lunch, we heard each other's presentations on Cryptoassets

  What the Investopedia Game looks Like Today was the second day of our Personal Finance J-Term. We started off the day by having a seminar on the books we are reading for this course which are Why Didn’t They Teach Me This in School and Your Money or Your Life . We talked about materialism in our society whether money equals our life energy. After Seminar we started our Investopedia game. This game is a simulation of the stock market, where we are able to trade stock with fake money. We all started off with $100,000. We are able to buy, sell, short, and even do options trades using this simulation.  Some students did very well on this, gaining around $2,000 today.  In the afternoon we didn’t do as much as we did in the morning but we still covered a variety of topics. We started off with presentations about topics like loans, mortgages, assets, liabilities, and insurance. After finishing that up we moved on to watching trading places. This movie follows the story of an Upper-crust exe

   Day 1 - Personal Finance January fourth was our first day of the personal-finance A-Term. We spent the morning going over the major projects of the course, most notably the game of life which we began working on in the afternoon. Additionally, we had a quick seminar on the introductions of two of the three books that we will be reading for class. After this, we went over some graphs showing the importance of saving money and collecting interest in it early in life. After this, we were introduced to the game of life which as far as we know right now will be a simulation of the expenses and earnings in our lives. All though for now all, we have been concerning ourselves with our time in college. This concluded our morning and we had a nice lunch break. In the second half of the day, students began to give the presentations that they had prepared for the class. Mateo and I gave a presentation on the functions of banks as well as the different types of accounts you can hold in a bank. W